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Sustainability in the hospitalityindustry

Some personal reflections on corporatechallenges and research agendas

Peter JonesThe Business School, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK

David HillierThe Centre for Police Sciences, University of South Wales, Pontypridd,

UK, and

Daphne ComfortThe Business School, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK

AbstractPurpose – The purpose of this commissioned paper is to offer some personal reflections onsustainability within the hospitality industry.Design/methodology/approach – The paper opens by identifying sustainability as a teasingparadox for the hospitality industry and a short discussion of the characteristics of sustainability. Itthen explores the growing interest in corporate sustainability and offers a review of the range ofacademic research into sustainability within the hospitality industry literature. More generally, theauthors suggest three fundamental sets of issues that currently face the industry, namely, definingsustainability within the industry, materiality and independent external assurance and sustainableconsumption and the industry’s commitment to continuing economic growth.Findings – In addressing these three sets of issues, the authors make a number of suggestions. Firstthat definitions of sustainability within the hospitality industry can be interpreted as being constructedaround business imperatives rather than an ongoing commitment to sustainability. Second thatmateriality and external assurance are not treated comprehensively within the industry, whichundermines the credibility of the sustainability reporting process. Third that the concept of sustainableconsumption and any critique of the industry’s commitment to economic growth are conspicuous bytheir absence in the both the research literature on sustainability and in sustainability reporting withinthe industry.Practical implications – The paper suggests that the hospitality industry may need to examine howit defines sustainability, to extend its sustainability reporting to embrace materiality and externalassurance and to address the issues of sustainable consumption and continuing economic growth if it isto demonstrate a worthwhile and enduring commitment to sustainability.Originality/value – The paper provides some accessible personal reflections on sustainability withinthe hospitality industry and, as such, it will be of interest to academics, students and practitionersinterested in the hospitality industry and more widely within the business and managementcommunity.

Keywords Economic growth, Materiality, Hospitality industry, Sustainability,Sustainable consumption, External assurance

Paper type General review

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:www.emeraldinsight.com/0959-6119.htm

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Received 12 November 2014Revised 4 February 2015

11 May 2015Accepted 13 June 2015

International Journal ofContemporary Hospitality

ManagementVol. 28 No. 1, 2016

p. 000© Emerald Group Publishing Limited

0959-6119DOI 10.1108/IJCHM-11-2014-0572

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Introduction: sustainability and the hospitality industryIn outlining future trends in the hospitality industry Deloitte (2014, p. 41) argued:

Sustainability will become a defining issue for the industry in 2015 and beyond. Risingpopulations and increasingly scarce resources will provide a challenging businessenvironment in which sustainability will need to be embedded within all facets of the industry,rather than regarded as a standalone issue.

At the same time, Sloan et al. (2013, p. 1) suggest that:

[…] a clear understanding of the issues surrounding climate change, global warming, air andwater pollution, ozone depletion, deforestation, the loss of biodiversity and global poverty isessential for every future manager in the hospitality industry.

However, throughout much of the hospitality industry, the concept of sustainabilityprovides a teasing paradox. At the operational level, for example, on the one hand, theindustry increasingly looks to deploy sustainability within both its marketing messagesand the customer experience, while, on the other hand, the headline accent is often onconspicuous consumption, which, in many ways, is the antithesis of sustainability. Inthe euro Disney Hotel in Paris, a notice attached to the bathroom doors reads “Topreserve nature every little counts! Please leave the towels you wish to change in thebathtub. Thank you for helping to protect the environment”. The menu at The HewlettArms in Cheltenham advertises “sustainably caught British fish battered withhomemade tartare sauce and minted peas”. At the same time, a travel magazineadvertisement for the Gore Hotel in central London invites potential guests to “beseduced by luxury in London”, while a newspaper advertisement for a Viking Cruiseoffers the opportunity to “sleep easy in a comfortable king-sized bed” and promises“whichever room you chose from the spacious 270 sq. ft. Veranda Staterooms to ourenormous Explorer suites – you can enjoy supreme comfort and style”.

At the corporate level, several of the major international hotel chains increasinglystress their commitment to sustainability and to integrating it into their core businessstrategy while pursuing continuing growth which makes a range of demands onenvironmental resources (Jones et al., 2014). Christopher J. Nassetta, the President andChief Executive Officer of Hilton Worldwide, for example, endorsed the executivesummary of the company’s Corporate Responsibility Report by asserting“sustainability is a priority for Hilton Worldwide and a central part of how the companydoes business” (Hilton Worldwide, 2012, p. 3). In a similar vein, the IntercontinentalHotel Group (2013, webpage) reports “we are committed to designing, building andoperating more environmentally sustainable hotels”. At the same time, commitments tosustainability are often couched within the idiom of continuing economic growth.Marriott, for example, emphasises “our sustainability strategy supports businessgrowth and reaches beyond the doors of our hotels to preserve and protect our planet’snatural resources”. In his statement, accompanying the Wyndham Worldwide, 2011Sustainability Report Stephen P. Holmes, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer,claimed that the company’s “commitment to global sustainability comes at a time ofboth exciting growth and serious economic challenges facing our industry” (WyndhamWorldwide, 2011, webpage).

In light of these apparent contradictions, this paper offers some personal reflectionson sustainability within the hospitality industry, and, as such, its aim is to stimulate,challenge and provoke debate and discussion rather than to offer a definitive and

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comprehensive review of either current corporate sustainability strategies and practicesor the academic literature on sustainability within the hospitality industry. The paperincludes an outline discussion of the origins and characteristics of the concept ofsustainability, a review of the growing interest in corporate sustainability within thebusiness world and an outline of the scope and flavour of research on sustainability inboth the general business and management and the hospitality literatures, and adiscussion of three fundamental sets of issues the authors believe the hospitalityindustry needs to address in pursuing sustainability, namely:

(1) variations in the way sustainability is defined within the hospitality industry;(2) materiality and independent external assurance; and(3) sustainable consumption and continuing economic growth.

Sustainability: origins and development of the conceptIn recent decades, the term sustainability is being increasingly widely used across manywalks of life, and in some ways, it seems to be used to mean all things to all people but“the idea of sustainability is not a mere mind game played by modern technocrats, northe brainwave of some tree-hugging eco-warriors […] it is our primal world culturalheritage” (Grober, 2012, p. 13). The events and ideas underpinning the concept ofsustainability certainly have a long history. Du Pisani (2006, p. 83) provides a succinctsummary of the historical roots and evolution of the concept of sustainability and looksto demonstrate “how the idea of sustainability evolved through the centuries as acounter to notions of progress” (Du Pisani, 2006, p. 83). He concludes by arguing:

[…] that the roots of the concept of sustainability can be traced back to ancient times, but thatpopulation growth, increases in consumption after the Industrial Revolution, and the dangerthat crucial resources such as wood, coal and oil could be depleted boosted awareness of theneed to use resources in a sustainable way. Fears that present and future generations might notbe able to maintain their living standards stimulated mode of thinking that would informdiscourses which prepared the way for the emergence and global adoption of sustainabledevelopment (Du Pisani, 2006, p. 87).

In recent times, the terms sustainable development and sustainability began to receivemuch more widespread attention and currency especially from the 1980s onwardsfollowing the publication of the “World Conservation Strategy” (International Union forConservation of Nature and Natural Resources, 1980) and “Our Common Future” (WorldCommission on Environment and Development, 1987). Increasing interest insustainability reflects a growing concern about a range of major challenges andproblems facing societies, environments and economies at a variety of spatialand temporal scales. These concerns include continuing population growth andurbanisation and the pressures this is putting on natural resource consumption and foodsupplies; climate change; growing levels of pollution; the loss of natural habitats; andwater stress and the increasing scarcity of water resources in some areas of the world. Intheory, the concept of sustainability is being increasingly seen as offering a potentialsolution to these problems. Diesendorf (2000, p. 21) argued that sustainability can beseen as “the goal or endpoint of a process called sustainable development”. Arguably,the most widely used definition of sustainable development is that offered in “OurCommon Future”, namely, “development that meets the needs of the present withoutcompromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”

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(World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, p. 43). That said, there isno universally agreed definition of sustainability and there are a number of contestedmeanings.

More specifically, there are sets of definitions that are based around ecologicalprinciples which focus on conserving natural resources and protecting fragileecosystems on which ultimately all human life depends. Goodland, (1995, p. 3), forexample, defined environmental sustainability as “the maintenance of natural capital”arguing that it:

[…] seeks to improve human welfare by preserving the sources of raw materials used forhuman needs and ensuring that the sinks for human waste are not exceeded in order to preventharm to humans.

There are also broader definitions that include social and economic dimensions alongwith environmental and ecological goals and to meet human needs in an equitablemanner. For the USA Environment Protection Agency (2014, webpage), for example:

[…] sustainability creates and maintains the conditions under which humans and nature canexist in productive harmony, that permits fulfilling the social, economic and otherrequirements of present and future generations.

Arguably more critically, Hudson (2005) argued that definitions of sustainability rangefrom “pallid blue green to dark deep green”. The former definition Hudson (2005, p. 241)suggests centres on “technological fixes within current relations of production,essentially trading off economic against environmental objectives, with the market asthe prime resource allocation mechanism” while for the latter “prioritizing thepreservation of nature is pre-eminent” (Hudson, 2005). Hudson (2005, p. 241) alsosuggests that the dominant view of sustainability “is grounded in a blue-green discourseof ecological modernization” and “claims that capital accumulation, profitableproduction and ecological sustainability are compatible goals”. Further he contrasts thisview with the “deep green” perspective which “would require significant reductions inliving standards and radical changes in the dominant social relations of production”(Hudson, 2005, p. 241). At the same time, a distinction is often made between“weak” and“strong” sustainability, with the former being used to describe sustainability initiativesand programmes developed within the existing prevailing economic and social systemwhile the latter is associated with much more radical changes for both economy andsociety (Roper, 2012).

Although the notion of sustainability has gained considerable, but not universal,political support and has become increasingly widely used, to a variety of ends, in manyareas of economic and social life, it has also attracted criticism. Three sets of criticismhave been identified (Robinson 2003). The concept is seen as vague, in that it means allthings to all people. Clark (2005, Webpage), for example, writing in The Timesnewspaper argued “In the absence of any precise meaning the concept of sustainabilityis pointless. It could mean virtually anything and therefore means absolutely nothing”.There is also the criticism that the sustainability has attracted those who essentially usethe term to promote what are in reality unsustainable activities as discussed later in thispaper. Some advocates of sustainability have also attracted criticism for failing torecognize that the current rates of economic growth are simply unsustainable. As such,support for popular conceptions of sustainability draw attention away from the need toconsider and plan for different ways of organising how people relate to the natural world

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and from the importance of the fundamental and widespread social and political changewhich may need to be an essential part of a transition to a genuinely more sustainablefuture. Indeed, Mansfield (2009, p. 37) has argued “it is striking the extent to whichpolitics–relations of power- have been written out of the discussions aboutsustainability”. That said, a number of critics interpret the increasing corporate interestin sustainability merely as a thinly veiled and cynical ploy, often described as “greenwash”, which is cynically designed to entice consumers who want to adopt what they seeas environmentally and socially conscious purchasing decisions, while, at the sametime, simply brushing environmental and social concerns under the carpet. Such movestowards sustainable marketing have, for example, been characterised by Hamilton(2009, pp. 573-574) as “shifting consciousness’s” towards “what is best described asgreen consumerism”. This he sees as “an approach that threatens to entrench the veryattitudes and behaviours that are antithetical to sustainability” and argues that “greenconsumerism has failed to induce significant inroads into the unsustainable nature ofconsumption and production”. Perhaps more radically Kahn (2010, p. 43) argues that“green consumerism” is:

[…] an opportunity for corporations to turn the very crisis that they generate through theiraccumulation of capital via the exploitation of nature into myriad streams of emergent profitand investment revenue.

As interest in sustainability has grown, attempts have been made to develop theoreticalframeworks to integrate nature and society. In a wide-ranging review of the modelsdeveloped to provide a conceptual underpinning for sustainability, Todorov andMarinova (2009) presented a fivefold taxonomy which embraced quantitative models,physical models, standardising models, conceptual models and pictorial visualisationmodels. The first two sets of models are restricted to specific disciplines; the thirdfocuses on the construction and subsequent application of indicators used to measuresustainability. The final two sets of models look to integrate the environmental, socialand economic dimensions of sustainability. Of the last two sets of models, pictorialvisualisation models received particular commendation from Todorov and Marinova(2009, p. 1218) who argued that, although such models are “static”, they are “powerful inreaching a broad audience”. The most commonly used of these pictorial models is thesimple three-dimensional model of sustainability, with environmental, social andeconomic issues being represented in a simple Venn diagram as three overlappingcircles.

Barter (2011); Zink (2005) and Gavare and Johansson (2010) have used interpretationsof stakeholder theory in an attempt to provide some conceptual underpinning forsustainability. In essence, stakeholder theory centres on the belief that companiesshould be sensitive to the interests and concerns of a wide variety of stakeholders,including suppliers, customers and society at large, as well as those of theirshareholders, and that this will ultimately enable them to enjoy greater long-termbusiness success. Wheeler et al. (2003, p. 16), for example, suggested that the concept ofsustainability is intimately and implicitly bound up with stakeholder theory and arguedthat “stakeholder concepts are highly relevant and useful to thinking aboutsustainability”. In developing their model of stakeholder management forsustainability, Gavare and Johansson (2010) argued that companies must beincreasingly sensitive to the needs and concerns of a wide range of stakeholders, while

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Steurer et al. (2005, p. 264) explored the relationship between sustainability andstakeholder theory and examined how “corporations are confronted with economic,social and environmental stakeholder claims”.

There have been attempts to develop a more critical theoretical approach which looksto embrace the competing perspectives on sustainability outlined earlier in the paper.Amsler (2009, p. 127), for example, suggested that “the contested politics andambiguities of sustainability discourses” should be positively embraced to develop a“critical theory of sustainability”. She further argued that current debates should belocated “within a broader tradition of social criticism” and that “competinginterpretations of sustainability” should be viewed as “invitations to explore thecomplex processes through which competing visions of just futures are produced,resisted and realized” (Amsler, 2009, p. 125). In a similar vein, Castro (2004) argued for amore radical theory of sustainability and called into question the very possibility ofsustainable development ever emerging under capitalism and claimed that economicgrowth intrinsically relies upon the continuing and inevitable exploitation of the world’snatural and social capital.

Corporate sustainabilityDuring recent years, the concept of sustainability has consistently moved higher upboardroom agendas and growing numbers of companies increasingly acknowledgesustainability as one of the emerging drivers of competition, and as a significant sourceof both opportunity for, and risk to, long-term competitive advantage. Carroll andBuchholtz (2012, p. 4), for example, suggest that “sustainability has become one ofbusiness’ most recent and urgent mandates”. In reviewing current trends in corporatesustainability strategy and performance, Ernst & Young and the GreenBiz Group (2012,p. 4), for example, argued that:

[…] over the past two decades corporate sustainability efforts have shifted from a risk-basedcompliance focus where rudimentary, voluntary sometimes haphazard initiatives haveevolved into a complex and disciplined business imperative focused on customer andstakeholder requirements.

A survey of business managers and executives undertaken by MIT Sloan ManagementReview and The Boston Consulting Group (2012, p. 4) suggested that “70 per cent ofcompanies have placed sustainability permanently on management agendas” and that:

[…] despite a lacklustre economy, many companies are increasing their commitment tosustainability initiatives, the opposite of what one would expect if sustainability were simplya luxury afforded by good times.

A range of factors help to explain this trend:• the statutory requirement to comply with the growing volume of environmental

and social regulations within many jurisdictions;• concerns over both the increasing costs and the growing scarcity of natural

resources;• increased public awareness of the growing importance shareholders attach to

environmentally and socially conscious investment decisions; and• growing media coverage of the disruptive activities of a number of anti-corporate

pressure groups.

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Many companies are increasingly seeking to emphasize their public commitment tosustainability in an attempt to help to differentiate themselves from their competitorsand to enhance their brand and corporate reputation. That said, Salzmann et al. (2005,p. 27) suggested that, within the business and management community, manymanagers have an “insufficient understanding” of the “key arguments” or the “businesslogic” for “adopting corporate sustainability strategies”.

The term “corporate sustainability” is certainly now in widespread use throughoutmuch of the business world, and it is generally recognised as an “essentially contestedconcept” (Visser, 2007, Webpage). Polentz (2011, webpage) suggested to “ask tendifferent experts to define corporate sustainability you are likely to receive ten differentanswers” and argued that:

[…] part of the problem in defining such an amorphous term arises from its continuingevolution along with the ever-increasing entry of new stakeholders, an inconsistent set of stateand federal laws and the constant onslaught of newly adopted federal and state laws.

A number of definitions focus on business continuity rather than environmental andsocial issues. Dyllick and Hockerts (2002, p. 131), for example, define corporatesustainability as:

[…] meeting the needs of a firm’s direct and indirect stakeholders (such as shareholders,employees, clients, pressure groups, communities etc.), without compromising its ability tomeet the needs of future stakeholders as well.

In a similar vein, Texas Instruments (2014, Webpage) used:

[…] the term sustainability primarily in relation to the operation of our business. We believeresponsible, sustainable business can meet current resource needs without compromising theneeds of future generations.

While sustainability has become an increasingly important corporate concern in thebusiness world, the hospitality sector has perhaps been somewhat slower to react.Although Sloan et al. (2013 p. 24) reported that “the hospitality industry set aboutincorporating the philosophy of sustainability in the early 1900’s”, but Cavagnaro andGehrels (2009, p. 181) suggested that “the hospitality industry is not considered to be oneof the most sustainability aware sectors”. That said, just three years later, van Rheedeand Blomme (2012, p. 257) argued that “the hospitality industry is starting to takeresponsibility for environmental sustainability”. In a similar vein, Williams andPonsford (2009, p. 402) acknowledge that there is “growing knowledge concerning howto move tourism towards greater sustainability” but argue that “progress intransitioning from concepts and principles to pan-industry practice is limited” andsuggest that “this may be due to a lack of collective leadership amongst tourism’sstakeholders”. The vast majority of the reporting and research on sustainability withinthe hospitality industry has been initially focused on the major players in the sector, andit is important to recognise that much less is known about if, and how, the smallercompanies, operators and individuals who make a significant contribution to consumerprovision within the industry are addressing sustainability.

The increase in corporate commitments to sustainability has been accompanied by agrowing volume of business and management research. While much of the early workhad a strong environmental emphasis, it has increasingly been broadened to addressmany dimensions of corporate sustainability including the business case for corporate

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sustainability (Salzmann et al., 2005); supply chain management (Seuring et al., 2008);innovation (Boons and Ludeke-Freund, 2013); entrepreneurship (Hockerts andWustenhargen, 2009); marketing (Hult, 2011); leadership (Jones et al., 2014); humanresource management (aet. al 0.2011); and management information systems (Dao et al.,2011). A range of research has also been undertaken across the extractive industries(Franks et al., 2010), in the manufacturing and service sectors generally (Gunasekaramand Spalanzani, 2011) and on a number of sector specific studies (e.g. on manufacturingEgilmez et al., 2013; on health care, (Pammolli et al., 2012); on retailing, (Jones et al., 2011);and on the global hotel industry, (Jones et al., 2014).

While this paper does not seek to offer a detailed review of these literatures, acommon theme runs through many of them, namely, that such work is still in its infancyand much remains to be done. Jackson et al. (2011, p. 102), for example, suggests that “weseek to stimulate the field of human resource management to expand its role in thepursuit of environmentally sustainable business”, while Dao et al. (2011, p. 63) arguedthat “Management Information Systems research on sustainability has been somewhatconstrained in the realm of green IT, which focuses mostly on the reduction of energyconsumption”. In a similar vein, Ashby et al. (2011, p. 498) claim:

[…] while there is clearly academic recognition of the need to integrate economic,environmental and social sustainability, given the broad nature of these fields there is atangible need to develop a better and more focused understanding of sustainability specificallyin relation to supply chains while Dey et al. (2011, p. 1237) stress that “there has been very littlework done to understand the role and the importance of logistics in an organizations’ questtowards sustainability.

In a similar vein, while Chabowski et al. (2011, p. 55) suggested that “recent changes inthe business environment have prompted marketing scholars to pay particular attentionto sustainability” but that “there is a paucity of research on the topic in premiermarketing journals”. Looking to the future, the authors suggest marketing research onsustainability should be focused on a number of areas including relating a company’ssustainability focus, its social and environmental focus and its legal and ethical intent tomarketing assets which enable these “marketing assets” to “influence financialperformance” (Chabowski et al., 2011, p. 63).

Research on sustainability in hospitality industry literaturesResearch output on sustainability within the hospitality industry is growing rapidlyand a number of research agendas are receiving attention, but rather than attempting toreview all of this research, the current authors offer a selection of illustrative examplesto provide a flavour of the nature and range of work being undertaken in this field. Inproviding an introduction to a recent text on sustainability within the hospitalityindustry, Jauhari (2014) focuses on a number of key themes including designing greenhotels, minimising energy consumption, the role of technological innovation inachieving sustainability, sustainable tourism, marketing sustainability to consumersand how human resource management practices can help to contribute to sustainability.A wide variety of themes and issues addressing sustainability within the hospitalityindustry have emerged within the literature and a few illustrative examples providesome insights into this work. Hassan (2000, p. 239) looked to develop “a model ofcompetitiveness that focuses on environmental sustainability factors associated withtravel destination” and examined “the relationships among all stakeholders involved in

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creating and integrating value added products to sustain resources while maintainingmarket position relative to other competitors”. Williams and Ponsford (2009, p. 396)drew attention to what they describe as “tourism’s environmental paradox” in thattourism simultaneously seeks often fragile and sensitive environmental resources as“core ingredients and compelling backdrops for the production and consumption oftourist experiences” and “it also requires the protection of the ecological integrity andabundance of these resources for sustained competitiveness”. Williams and Ponsford(2009) stressed the urgent need for a more systematic approach to evaluating andmanaging this paradox.

Kasim et al. (2014, p. 1090), for example, have highlighted what they describe as “theglobal phenomenon of the crisis in the quality and quantity of water supplies and howtourism and hotels specifically may have contributed to this situation” and they proposea “water management framework […] that leverages on the concept of innovation” andthat offers examples of how “hotels of different sizes, with differing financial, technical,knowledge and managerial capacities could address the challenge of implementingwater management and obtain commercial benefit”. In looking to examine ways ofimproving sustainability in the hospitality industry, Gil-Saura and Ruiz (2011) drewattention to how the application of information and communication technologies couldcontribute to a reduction in energy demands. Jayawardena et al. (2013) outlined keysustainability issues and trends within the Canadian tourism and hospitality industryand they examined the role of innovation in addressing sustainability challenges withinthe industry. Ajagumma (2006, p. 253) examined the impact of crime and harassment onthe sustainability of the tourism industry in Jamaica and suggested that it requires“immediate, radical changes in attitudes, values and practices of the businesscommunity, the government, the media as well as co-operation from local residents”.Duarte and Borda (2013) have examined the relationship between accessibility andsustainability focusing on people with reduced mobility or limited mobility and how theindustry is increasingly looking to address the needs of these groups.

Sigala (2008) explored the value of employing general supply chain managementconcepts within tour operators’ business in integrating sustainability into tourismsupply chains. Sigala (2008, p. 1590) suggests that “sustainability in tourism is amulti-sectoral and a multi-disciplinary concept”, and, as such, it “depends on theperformance of all products, suppliers and links within the tourism supply chain”.Following a case study of TUI Travel, one of the world’s leading leisure travel groups,Sigala (2008, p. 1598) argued that applying supply chain management as “a criticalmanagement tool” had enabled the identification of a number of “good practices thatpolicy makers and tourism suppliers can adapt for enhancing tourism sustainability”.Under the headline title “From Farm to Fork”, O’Donovan et al. (2012, p. 500)investigated the direct supply chain relationship in the food industry to the hospitalityindustry in the south east of Ireland. Although the authors stress that their work isexploratory they suggest that there are strong “social, economic, organisational andmarket rationales for a more concerted effort to promote higher levels of direct supplychain relationships in the hospitality sector” (O’Donovan et al., 2012, p. 500).

Prud’homme and Raymond (2013) explored the impact of sustainable developmentpractices in the hospitality industry on customer satisfaction in a number of hotels inthe province of Quebec in Canada. This research revealed that customer satisfaction ispositively influenced by the hotels’ adoption of sustainable development practices and

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that hotel size and ownership also influence the level of customer satisfaction.Manaktola and Jauhan (2007, p. 364) explored “the factors which influence the consumerattitude and behaviour towards green practices in the lodgings industry within India”,and their research revealed that consumers “patronise the hotels that have adoptedgreen practices” but that they are “not willing to pay extra for these services”. Zhanget al. (2012) used panel data from over 600 US hotels to construct a performancemeasurement system for environmental sustainability. Their investigation suggestedthat customer behaviour and operational decisions are two key drivers of environmentalsustainability and revealed that “there is a positive link between environmentalsustainability and operating performance” and that “the performance frontier variesacross market segment and location characteristics such as degree of urbanization andclimate change” (Zhang et al., 2012, p. 377). Rodriguez-Anton et al. (2012) analysed therole of sustainability management systems in the hospitality industry within Spanishhotels. Their research revealed that hotels that principally look to target leisure andtourist customers that are particularly concerned about environmental management,while those which tend to primarily attract business customers are more concerned withhuman resource management and labour relations than environmental issues.

A number of studies have also examined the nature of the sustainability reportingpractices within the hospitality industry. De Grosbois (2012, p. 896), for example,reviewed the methods and scope of corporate social responsibility reporting by theworld’s top 150 hotel companies. They found that, while a large number of the selectedcompanies reported on their commitment to a wide range of sustainability issuesincluding environmental goals, environmental quality, diversity and accessibility,community well-being and economic prosperity, “much smaller numbers of themprovide details of specific initiatives and even less of them report on actual performanceachieved”. Font et al. (2012, p. 1544) looked to benchmark the corporate socialresponsibility practices of ten international hotel groups and their research revealed thatcorporate systems are not necessarily reflective of actual operations and that:

[…] environmental performance is eco-savings driven, labour policies look to comply withlocal legislation, socio-economic policies are inward looking with little acceptance of impactson the destination and customer engagement is limited.

More specifically, Bonilla-Priego et al. (2014, p. 149) developed a corporate sustainabilityreporting index embracing labour and human rights, health and safety andenvironmental and economic dimensions for the cruise industry, although their researchsuggests that “companies disclose more management than performance data” and often“focus on soft indicators which are easy to mimic and demonstrate posturing” and that“reports echo the voice of the corporations and not the demands of stakeholders”.

These specific examples offer some broad impressions of the diversity of publishedwork on sustainability within the hospitality industry. Such diversity would seem to bea strength, in that it suggests that there is vibrant academic enthusiasm and concern forthe role and importance of sustainability within the hospitality industry. This, in turn,suggests that increasingly public corporate commitments to, and concerns about,sustainability within the hospitality industry are being reflected and pursued in theacademy. However, the diversity of academic research on sustainability within thehospitality industry might be seen to be a weakness in that such work currently seemsto be fragmented, in that it lacks both a coherent overall structure and a clear research

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framework or to have identified a consistent methodological approach or agreed futureresearch agendas. It is for the academics studying the hospitality industry and for itsmajor research centres to work collaboratively to develop, agree and drive forward suchresearch agendas and frameworks and there is some limited evidence that suchframeworks are emerging (Clarke, 1997; Connelly et al., 2011; van Rheede and Blomme,2012), although a great deal more work needs to be done. More generally, the currentauthors would argue that three fundamental sets of issues face the hospitality industry.First, the industry definitions of sustainability lack clarity and precision, and, in manyways, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that commitment to sustainability is asimple ubiquitous phrase covering a large number of environmental, social andeconomic issues and corporate agendas. Second, the issues of materiality andindependent external assurance provide a major challenge if the industry’s approach tosustainability is to demonstrate transparency, integrity and credibility. Third,sustainable consumption and industry commitments to continuing economic growthpose a complex, enigmatic and arguably unpalatable dilemma, not only for thehospitality industry but also more widely for the dominant capitalist business model.

Defining sustainability within the hospitality industry and bridging thesustainability gapThere are a number of issues in and around the way sustainability is defined within thehospitality industry and that the industry must address if it is to demonstrate itscommitment to sustainability. By and large, definitions of sustainability within theindustry are broad general statements, and as Goldstein and Primlani (2012, webpage)suggested, “while other aspects of the hospitality sector are relatively straightforward torecord and interpret, sustainability has remained intrinsically difficult to quantify”.Legrand and Sloan (2009, webpage), for example, followed the World Commission onEnvironment and Development in defining “sustainable hospitality” as:

[…] hospitality industry development and management that meets the needs of today’s guests,hoteliers and stakeholders without compromising the ability of future guests, hoteliers andstakeholders to enjoy the benefits from the same services, products and experiences.

But major players within the industry itself have generally been reluctant to publiclycommit themselves to anything resembling a precise, and therefore potentiallymeasurable, definition. By and large, their approaches to defining sustainability areloosely couched within more general business goals and strategies. The Walt DisneyCompany (2015, webpage), for example, looks:

[…] to establish and sustain a positive environmental legacy for Disney and for futuregenerations. In doing so, the company is committed to minimizing its overall impact on theenvironment while encouraging and activating environmentally responsible behavior on thepart of cast members and employees, guests and business associates throughout the world.

Marriott International (2014, webpage) claims “our sustainability strategy supportsbusiness growth and reaches beyond the doors of our hotels to preserve and protect ourplanet’s natural resources”.

While industry definitions, however loosely defined, generally tend to privilege theenvironmental dimensions of sustainability, the major players also clearly include thesocial and economic dimensions within their approaches to sustainability and they

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certainly claim to address a range of issues and agendas. The environmental issuesaddressed include:

• climate change and greenhouse gas emissions;• water stewardship: and energy efficiency and conservation;• waste management and recycling;• environmentally responsible sourcing;• bio-diversity and the protection and preservation of natural resources;• the reduction of environmental impacts; and• the creation of green construction standards for new hotel construction.

Social issues embrace diversity and equal opportunities within the workplace, healthand safety, labour conditions in the supply chain, human rights, supporting localcommunities and charitable giving, while economic issues include employmentcreation, providing value to customers and building shareholder value. Given this widerange of sustainability commitments, inevitably, there may be inherent contradictionsin aligning what may in effect be contradictory and competing goals. Deloitte (2014,p. 46) recognised the tensions and argued that while:

[…] in the short term whilst brands and operators will have to balance sustainability againstother competing initiatives aimed at gaining market share, sacrificing environmentalresponsibility should be avoided.

While Goldstein and Primlani (2012, Webpage) recognised that “sustainability issueshave nearly every aspect of the hospitality industry” thus “necessitating the alignmentof environmental, social and economic factors to promote responsible businessoperations over time”, in reality, such alignments may prove difficult and at bestcompanies may have to make difficult trade-offs between pursuing wide rangingsustainability strategies and programmes.

Marriott’s corporate commitment to “reducing costs whenever possible”, forexample, could be seen to be in conflict with the company’s commitment to “guestsatisfaction” and to “purchasing organic and responsibility sourced food […] andestablishing relationships with local farmers” (Marriott International, 2012, webpage).At the individual hotel level, managers working to meet what may be ever moredemanding operational and financial deadlines and/or to achieve performance relatedbonuses may, when facing problems with staff scheduling, put employees underpressure to work outside the hours that suit their work–life balance or to releaseemployees for educational training programmes. While these tensions are commonplacein large companies looking to publicly pursue wide-ranging sustainability agendas,they might be seen to be exacerbated, in part at least, in some sections of the hospitalityindustry, in that a number of the leading hotel chains, for example, operate a businessmodel based on managing and franchising hotels rather than owning them. Under thismodel, the hotel company does not manage employees, operations and maintenance. AtMarriott, for example, the focus is on working “with owners and franchisees to ensurethat brand standards are met” and to “encourage sustainable operational practices”(Marriott International, 2012, Webpage). Similarly, Wyndham Worldwide (2011,Webpage) reported that the majority of its hotels are independently owned and operatedby franchise owners and hotel development companies. Although the company argued

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that these owners and developers have a vital “role in driving the direction of our globalsustainability efforts” (Wyndham Worldwide, 2011, webpage), in truth, they are, at best,one step removed from direct corporate control.

More critically, definitions of sustainability within the hospitality industry can beinterpreted as being constructed around business efficiency and the search forcompetitive advantage and as such can be seen to be driven as much by businessimperatives as by any concern for sustainability. Many of the environmental initiativesand achievements included in the sustainability reports published by the leadingplayers in the hospitality industry designed, for example, to reduce energy and waterconsumption and waste but they also reduce costs. Similarly, corporate commitments toemployees which focus, for example, on educational training programmes, diversity andhealth and safety at work help to promote a stable, loyal and efficient workforce.However, Deloitte (2012, p. 4) has argued that most companies carefully select theenvironmental and social data on which they report, and, as such, they determine theirdefinitions of sustainability “based on their own intuition and experience” and on“one-to-one consultations with stakeholders or stakeholder panels”. Deloitte (2012, p. 2)argues that such approaches do not genuinely help managers and executives toestablish and develop a relative ranking of sustainability issues “based upon whatmatters most to the business”. In essence, the world’s leading hotel chains haveconstructed sustainability agendas and programmes, which are driven largely, but notexclusively, by corporate commercial interests with the on business efficiency gainsrather than on the maintenance of natural ecosystems and a reduction in demands on theearth’s natural resource base.

More generally, it is important to recognise the “sustainability gap” (Fischer et al.,2012, p. 621) and the challenges it poses for research and for the transition tosustainability. Fischer et al. (2012, p. 621), for example, claimed that “despite increasingefforts to reach sustainability, key global biophysical indicators such as climate changeand biodiversity loss continue to deteriorate rather than improve”. In a similar vein,Wick et al. (2012, p. 1) suggested that while “public attention is captivated by theentertaining media episodes of (environmental) characteristics and hardly any attentionis paid to these catastrophes’ underlying structures and root causes”. More critically,Fischer et al. (2012, p. 621) argue that “ongoing failure to move towards sustainabilitycalls into question the current focus of research”. In looking to address these concerns,Fischer et al. (2007, p. 1) recommended two research strategies:

(1) sustainability must be conceptualised as a hierarchy of considerations, with thebiophysical limits of the Earth setting the ultimate boundaries within whichsocial and economic goals must be achieved; and

(2) that “transdisciplinary research programmes must confront key normativequestions facing modern consumer societies”.

The importance of materiality and external assurance in sustainabilityreportingReporting on corporate sustainability is an increasingly important element in thecorporate mindset as:

[…] companies are increasingly realizing that corporate responsibility reporting is about morethan just being a good corporate citizen; it drives innovation and promotes learning, which

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helps companies grow their business and increases their organization’s value (KPMG, 2011,p. 2).

In a similar vein, the Global Reporting Initiative (2013, p. 4) suggests that sustainabilityreporting “encourages good management and serves as an incentive for theestablishment of a culture of corporate transparency”. That said, if sustainabilityreporting is to achieve these goals, then it is vitally important that companies publishingcorporate sustainability reports address the issues of materiality and independentexternal assurance.

The concept of materiality can be traced to the auditing and accounting processesassociated with traditional financial reporting, but it is increasingly seen to be vitallyimportant in the sustainability reporting process. Materiality is basically concernedwith identifying those environmental, social and economic issues that matter most to acompany and its stakeholders who increasingly want to make ethically informedinvestment decisions. There is some consensus that sustainability includes a widerrange of issues and actions than financial reporting. The Global Reporting Initiative(2015, Webpage), for example, defines material issues as:

[…] those topics that have a direct or indirect impact on an organization’s ability to create,preserve or erode economic, environmental and social value for itself, its stakeholders andsociety at large.

More specifically, the Global Reporting Initiative (2015, Webpage), stresses thecomplexity involved in determining materiality suggesting that:

[…] the operations and activities of an organization lead to positive and negative economic,environmental and social impacts. Some of these sustainability impacts will be visible tostakeholders, who will express an interest in them directly. But not all sustainability impactswill be recognized by stakeholders. Some impacts may be slow and cumulative. Others willoccur at a distance from stakeholders, so that causal links may not be clear.

That said, the Governance and Accountability Institute (2014) has emphasised that“from sector-to-sector and company-to-company, the process for determiningmateriality will vary” and suggest that:

[…] an energy company’s greenhouse gas emissions is of high materiality to stakeholders, butat a pharmaceutical company, product safety and responsibility would be considered by manyto be higher up the ranking of material sustainability issues.

More specifically, while the energy costs generated by mass global travel might bethought to be one of the main material issues within the hospitality sector, theGovernance and Accountability Institute’s (2014) research reveals that productresponsibility (particularly customer privacy), labour practices (particularly trainingand education) and the impact of the industry within society (particularly public policy)are ranked above environmental concerns such as energy consumption and greenhousegas emissions.

In arguing the case for “sector specific materiality and sustainability reportingstandards”, Eccles (2012. p. 8) argued that “without standards it is difficult forcompanies to know exactly how to measure and report on some dimensions ofsustainability performance” and to make “comparisons of performance amongcompanies and over time”. The authors suggest that while a wide range of public andprivate sector organisations have issued guidelines on materiality for sustainability

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reporting, they argue that “the proliferation of materiality guidance” (for sustainabilityreporting) “creates the perception of competing or duelling standards, which can andarguably does create confusion among companies” and that it has contributed to“inconsistencies” in reporting on sustainability (Eccles, 2012, p. 10). The authors furthersuggest that:

[…] while “not a panacea” the development of sector specific guidelines on what sustainabilityissues are material to that sector and the key performance indicators for reporting on themwould significantly improve the ability of companies to report on their environmental, socialand governance performance (Eccles, 2012, p. 13).

Eccles (2012, p. 14) conclude that a company’s failure to disclose material information ina comparable format has two downsides, namely, “companies are not adequatelymanaging important business issues” and “risk to investors’ portfolios, such asexposure to climate change, remain hidden”.

The concept of materiality has received little attention within the hospitalityindustry. Marriot (2012, webpage), for example, claims in the introduction to its2011-2012 Sustainability Report that the issues used to determine materiality aredescribed in each section of the report; the sections on business practices, businessvalues, environment and society include no explicit details on how materiality has beendetermined. More generally, while Ricaurte (2012, p. 18) has demonstrated thecomplexity of materiality in a hotel’s carbon footprints, he concluded that “furtherindustry discussion and research are necessary to arrive at standard forms ofcalculating and communicating hotel carbon footprints”. The structure and diversity ofthe hospitality sector and the sheer diversity of the environmental, social and economicissues embraced by sustainability serve to highlight the scale and the complexity of thechallenges involved in developing, disseminating and applying agreed materialitystandards for sustainability reporting within the hospitality industry.

At the same time, there is growing awareness that external independent assurance ofthe information contained in sustainability reports is also vitally important in providingcomparability, transparency and credibility. KPMG (2011, p. 28), for example, arguedthat growing investor and stakeholder pressure effectively means that companies“increasingly want to demonstrate the quality and reliability of their corporateresponsibility data”. Assurance is a process designed to increase confidence in thequality and reliability of sustainability performance data. Such assurance is normallyconducted in four ways. CSR Europe (2008, Webpage), for example, identified fourprincipal methods, namely, “conducting assurance internally”, “stakeholder panels”,“expert input” and assurance by an “independent, impartial and external organisation”.However, the most widely used approach to assurance in sustainability reporting is thecommissioning of an assurance statement by an independent external organisation. Anumber of organisations offer external assurance services for sustainability reports.Accountancy companies (e.g. PricewaterhouseCoopers) are the largest providers ofexternal assurance for sustainability reports. A number of sustainability consultancies(e.g. Planet and Prosperity) also provide external assurance and a number ofengineering firms (e.g. TruePivot) which offer technical certification and specialistengineering expertise and risk-based analysis.

CorporateRegister.com Limited (2008, p. 6) define an assurance statement as “thepublished communication of a process which examines the veracity and completeness of

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a CSR report”. That said, the provision of assurance statements can be seen to beproblematic, in that not only is there often variation between the volume, characteristicsand details of the information companies provide in their sustainability reportsthemselves, but there is currently limited consensus on the methods companies shoulduse to collect and report on their sustainability data. CorporateRegister.com Limited(2008, p. 6) argued that “the underlying processes are often opaque and companyspecific, so it’s difficult to know how far a report reflects actual performance” and that“unless a company can define its scope of performance disclosure, how can an assuranceprovider define the scope of assurance”.

External assessors work to two different levels of assurance, namely, “reasonableassurance” and “limited assurance”. In the first, the assurers undertake their work in away which enables them to issue statements on a sustainability report “which areframed in a positive manner, e.g., the reported environmental data accurately reflect”(the company’s) “environmental performance” (CorporateRegister.com Limited, 2008,p. 14). In the second, the assurers undertake their work in a more limited way whichallows them to make statements about the information in a sustainability report “whichare framed in a negative manner, e.g. nothing has come to our attention which causes usto believe that the reported environmental data do not accurately reflect” (thecompany’s) “environmental performance” (CorporateRegister.com Limited, 2008, p. 14).Within the hospitality industry, there is at best very limited evidence of independentexternal assurance in the sustainability reporting process (Jones et al., 2014), but it mustbe noted that independent assurance can be both a contentious and an expensiveprocess. O’Dwyer and Owen (2005, p. 205), for example, claim that their empirical workon the assurance process in a number of large companies calls into question theindependence of the process. In addition, O’Dwyer and Owen (2005, p. 224) identified aconsiderable degree of management control over the assurance process and argued thatthe management “may place any restrictions they choose on the assurance exercise”.

Independent external assurance can be a costly and time-consuming process. Themajor players in the global hospitality industry are large and dynamic organisationsand the capture and storage of sustainability information and data over a wide and oftengeographically dispersed range of activities throughout the supply chain and theprovision of external access to assurers can be a challenging, sensitive and a potentiallyexpensive venture and one which many of the major players in the hospitality industrydo not pursue. While a company’s carbon emissions may be collected and formallyaudited as part of its environmental sustainability commitments, details of a company’swork in local communities and on contributions to charities and information onemployee satisfaction and health and well-being can be more difficult to measure andassure. At the same time, the myriad of small companies across the hospitality sectoroften have neither the time nor the resources to consider or to report on the sustainabilityof their businesses.

Nevertheless, many stakeholders have growing concerns as to how both large andsmall companies within the hospitality industry are both meeting and publiclyreporting on their environmental, social and economic and responsibilities. This, in turn,increasingly demands the inclusion of a robust and rigorous assurance statement withincorporate sustainability reports which will, in turn, help to enhance reliability,credibility and integrity of the reporting process. There is also an argument thatexternal assurance can “identify shortcomings in underlying data collection systems,

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thus providing a roadmap for improvement to the reporting company” (CSR Europe,2008, webpage). More commercially, the provision of an assurance statement might beseen to enhance both a company’s reputation with its stakeholders and help to promoteits brand identity.

Sustainability, sustainable consumption and continuing economic growthThe concept of sustainable consumption is conspicuous by its virtual absence from theresearch literature on sustainability within the hospitality industry, yet there is agrowing awareness that the need to move towards more sustainable patterns ofconsumption is becoming increasingly pressing. Cohen (2010) has traced the emergenceof the term sustainable consumption to the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, and since then, ithas become an increasingly important policy element in national sustainabledevelopment strategies. The World Economic Forum (2012, webpage), for example, hasstressed that:

[…] businesses must reshape demand by making sustainable consumption more personal andrelevant to consumers, leveraging the power of technology to drive engagement andtransparency and by redesigning products and services to deliver increased value with fewerresources, thus making the sustainable choice the default choice.

However, the World Economic Forum (2012, p. 6) has also argued “there is no silverbullet for achieving sustainable consumption” and this strikes a chord with Cohen’s(2005, Webpage) argument that “sustainable consumption is the most obduratechallenge for the sustainable development agenda”.

However, there is little, if any, consensus in defining sustainable consumption and itis widely recognized to be a contested concept (Seyfang, 2004). A number of definitionsof sustainable consumption mirror mainstream definitions of sustainable development.The United Nations Environment Programme (2015, Webpage), for example, definessustainable consumption as:

[…] the use of services and related products that respond to basic needs and bring a betterquality of life while minimizing the use of natural resources and toxic materials as well as theemissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle so as not to jeopardize the needs of futuregenerations.

More simply, Dahl (1998, Webpage) suggests that “sustainable consumption refers tothe need to stay within the global sustainability of resources”. Jackson (2006, p. 4)summarised a variety of definitions but noted that these adopt different positions notonly on “the extent to which sustainable consumption involves changes in consumerbehaviour and lifestyles” but also on whether sustainable consumption implies“consuming more efficiently, consuming more responsibly or quite simply consumingless”. Jackson (2006, p. 4) further argues that “the dominant institutional consensus” isthat sustainable consumption “is to be achieved primarily through improvements in theefficiency with which resources are converted into economic goods”.

There are broader and more fundamental issues concerning the tension between theefficacy of looking to promote both sustainable consumption and continuing businessgrowth, and the levels of resource consumption and the environmental impactsattendant upon such growth. Here it is important to recognise that there may be avariable relationship between economic growth and environmental costs in thoseenvironmental costs are often higher in countries in the early stages of economic growth

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and this can be problematic in establishing, developing and promoting new touristvenues in developing countries. Many of the leading international players within theindustry are firmly committed to continuing business growth. In its “2011-2012Sustainability Report”, Marriott International, for example, clearly commits itself tocontinuing growth as a preface to the provision of details of its commitments andachievements to the environment, to society and to its employees. More specifically, thecompany emphasised that “growth is expected to remain stable in 2012” and that “asMarriott continues to grow over the next couple of years, we anticipate that ourmanaged and franchised hotels will generate approximately 100,000 new jobs” (MarriottInternational, 2012, webpage). Some of the major players do not explicitly recognise anytension between sustainability and economic growth while others publicly view itcreatively rather than destructively. The Wyndham Worldwide hotel chain, forexample, claims that its “commitment to global sustainability comes at a time of excitinggrowth” (Wyndham Worldwide, 2011, Webpage). The Intercontinental Hotel Grouprecognised the tension between the continuing growth of tourism and the environmentalpressures this growth can generate but argued that this very tension “creates a space forinnovation ”and provides “an opportunity to find innovative solutions to theenvironmental, social and economic effects of our business” (Intercontinental HotelGroup, 2013, webpage).

At the same time, there are arguments that economic growth, dependent in manyways on the seemingly incessant depletion of the earth’s finite natural resources, isincompatible with the concept of sustainable consumption. Such arguments areepitomised by Jackson’s (2006, p. 1) belief that “the consumption patterns thatcharacterize modern Western society are unsustainable. They rely too heavily on finiteresources and they generate unacceptable environmental costs”. In a similar vein, BSR,a consultancy that works with over 300 companies worldwide “to build a just andsustainable world”, has argued that “it is increasingly clear that the consumption basedmodel of economic growth cannot be applied globally without causing immenseenvironmental and economic disruption”. In addressing the relationship betweensustainable consumption and economic growth, Cohen (2010) makes the distinctionbetween “weak” and “strong” sustainable consumption. Cohen (2010, p. 110) suggeststhat the former is essentially focused on changing consumer behaviour and gives rise to“policy recommendations built up around green consumerism, eco-labelling andhousehold investments in energy efficiency” and to strategies “grounded in productpolicy, lifecycle engineering, waste and material minimization and eco-efficiency”.

More generally, corporate approaches to sustainability are rooted in “the orthodoxview” that “achieving sustainability is a technical issue” requiring “better knowledge,incentives and technology” (Mansfield, 2009, p. 37). Clark and Dickson (2003) suggestedthat “the need for sustainable development initiatives to mobilize appropriate scienceand technology has long been recognized” and advances in technology are often seen toprovide the best way of promoting greater efficiency. Many of the leading players withinthe hospitality industry have certainly stressed the importance of technologicalinnovation in improving efficiency across the sustainability spectrum. TheIntercontinental Hotel Group (2013, Webpage), for example, stressed its focus onseeking to “innovate concepts and technologies” and reports, for example, that it iscommitted “to designing, building and operating more sustainable hotels through

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innovation”. However, Schor (2008, p. 310) suggested “much of the literature onsustainable consumption has focused upon technological solutions” and claims that:

[…] advocates of technological solutions argue that more intelligent design and technologicalinnovation can dramatically reduce or even stop the depletion of ecological resources, as wellas eliminate toxic chemicals and ecosystem disruption.

Cohen (2010, p. 110) argues that “modest anticipated gains are incompatible areincompatible with the bold targets endorsed by scientific experts” and as such he claimsthat weak sustainable consumption “is just pretense”. In a similar vein, Schor (2005,p. 310) argued that such approaches “fail to address increases in the scale of productionand consumption, sometimes even arguing that such increases are not unsustainable ifenough natural-capital-saving technical change occurs”.

From within the academic business community, a number of authors have offeredreflections on possible transitions to more sustainable futures. In his introduction to aseries of essays entitled “Thoughts on Sustainability”, Peters (2009, p. 1), for example,suggested the essays:

[…] reflect a deeply rooted questioning of the philosophical premises which have shapedWestern Society, the belief in rationality, cognition, expansion and consumption, supported bya world of unlimited resources.

More specifically, Peters (2009, p. 1) asserted “we now rationally know that the presentpath the world is on is not sustainable, yet we do next to nothing about it” and then asks“is there something that in our nature, rather than in our nurture that stands in ourway?” and:

[…] are we pre-programmed from the dawn of time of homo-sapiens to think in the short termto consume as much as possible while the going is good to favour our own clan over thecommon good?

In looking to address, although not necessarily provide answers to, these questionsPeters draws attention to the essays by Stubbings and by Kasozi. Stubbings (2009, p. 8),for example, argued that “we seem to have a ‘hard wired’ tendency to focus on the nearfuture, whether that is the immediate future or the length of our own lifetime” andsuggests that:

[…] we have not been biologically equipped by evolution to consider the long termmulti-generational consequences of our actions today and certainly not those consequencesthat are geographically as well as temporarily removed from us.

She calls for the development of “an ecological mindset” which, inter alia, would be “longtermist” and be focused on “thinking in terms of eons and epochs, not end of month ornext quarter” (Stubbings, 2009, p. 3). In developing such a mindset, she argues,somewhat paradoxically, that “we can develop better awareness of the impacts of ourchoices on future generations by paying more attention to the moment” and suggeststhat “many of the decisions we take day-in-day-out and in business do not require expertinsight for us to assess the likely consequences” (Stubbings, 2009, p. 3). Kasozi (2009,p. 14) suggests that growth has become “an unchallengeable imperative”, that questionsof limitation, utility or caution are often viewed as evidence of lack of imagination, insightor courage’, that “growth is always good and always necessary” and that challenges tothe growth idiom are “not the substance of true entrepreneurial spirit”.

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More radically, a number of social scientists offer critiques essentially based on thepolitical economy. Mansfield (2009, p. 37), for example, argues that the mainstreamapproaches to sustainability fail to recognise “the political nature of the socio-economicprocesses that produce environmental degradation poverty and injustice – in short, thepolitical nature of sustainability”. In a similar vein, Jackson (2006, p. 20) argued that “itis entirely fanciful to suppose that deep emission and resource cuts can be achievedwithout confronting the structure of market economies”. Equally pointedly, Castro(2004) has questioned the very possibility of sustainable development under capitalismand argued that economic growth relies upon the continuing and inevitable exploitationof both natural and social capital. Here, Fernando’s (2003, p. 1) assertion that “capitalismhas shown remarkable creativity and power to undermine the goals of sustainabledevelopment by appropriating the language and practices of sustainable development”resonates loudly. This seems to echo Dolan’s (2002, p. 170) argument that “the goal ofsustainable consumption needs to be seen as a political project, recognising the powerrelations between social groupings and between cultural value systems” as well as hiswarning that “this is the context within which the idea of sustainability will stand orfall”.

Concluding discussionIn concluding these personal reflections on sustainability within the hospitalityindustry, the authors offer a brief summary of their findings interwoven with a numberof thoughts on some of the challenges companies currently face in their corporatesustainability reporting:

• on the evolution of sustainability research;• on the future research agendas within the hospitality industry;• on how hospitality scholars can contribute to broader research agendas within the

business and management fields; and• on research methods: and on a number of practical and theoretical implications.

During recent decades, the concept of sustainability has taken on an increasingly highprofile within society and across all sectors of the economy. However, defining theconcept is not straightforward, and there are a number of contrasting and contestedmeanings. There are, for example, sets of definitions rooted in environmental concernswhich privilege the conservation of natural resources and the protection of ecosystemsand there are broader sets of definitions that emphasise social and economic as well asenvironmental goals that look to meet human needs in an equitable manner. Acommitment to corporate sustainability has certainly moved seemingly ever higher upboardroom agendas as a growing number of companies acknowledge sustainability asa driver of competition and a source of competitive advantage and look to reportpublicly on their sustainability strategies and achievements. That said, there is little orno consensus in defining corporate sustainability and a number of definitions focus onbusiness continuity rather than on the environment and society.

The majority of the major players in the hospitality industry are publicly committedto strategic corporate sustainability agendas and programmes and many of them reportpublicly on their commitments and achievements, but there are issues around the waysustainability is defined and operationalized within the industry. Definitions of

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sustainability within the industry are broad and often do not readily lend themselves toeasy measurement. Many of the major players within the hospitality industry claim tobe pursuing a large number of environmental, social and economic programmes, butmany of these programmes are often principally focused on eco-efficiency gains, ondeveloping and enhancing community relationships, on encouraging loyalty andstability within the work force and on promoting and disseminating positive corporateimages. As such, the leading players in the hospitality industry can be seen to beadopting a weak approach to sustainability rather than pursuing programmes to reducethe consumption of environmental resources or to maintain the integrity of naturalecosystems. That said, the major companies within the hospitality industry would alsowant to stress the importance of recognising business imperatives and in developinggood management practices in running “their companies successfully under presentframework conditions while helping to lead society towards the new frameworkconditions of sustainability” (World Business Council for Sustainable Development,2010, webpage). Nevertheless, in some ways, the concept of sustainability is a paradoxfor the hospitality industry, in that, while the majority of the major players claim astrategic commitment to corporate sustainability, they often promote conspicuousconsumption which in many ways is the antithesis of sustainability. More generally,sustainability is a thorny issue for the hospitality industry and, in some ways, the majorcompanies need to address what are complex, protean and challenging issues withcaution.

More specifically, there are three major sets of challenges that the leading players inthe hospitality industry must look to address if they are to improve the transparency,credibility and integrity of their sustainability commitments. Companies must embracemateriality and commission independent external assurance as integral elements in thesustainability reporting process and address “sustainability budgets and returns”(Ethical Corporation, 2015, webpage). First, in looking to embrace materiality, there is athorny issue concerning the nature of the relationship between company interests andstakeholder interests. This can occur where a company, and, more specifically, itsexecutive management team, is principally, sometimes exclusively responsible foridentifying material issues within the sustainability reporting process. As such, thecompany might also be seen to be essentially responsible for identifying its stakeholdersand for collecting, collating and articulating their views on the priorities for thecompany’s sustainability strategies. However, whether the leading hospitalitycompanies can realistically and comprehensively elicit and accurately represent theviews of all their key stakeholders remains to be seen. At the same time, Cooper andOwen (2007, p. 665) counsel caution arguing that:

[…] whilst the corporate lobby apparently espouses a commitment to stakeholderresponsiveness, and even accountability, their claims are pitched at the level of mere rhetoricwhich ignores key issues such the establishment of rights and transfer of power to stakeholdergroups.

More specifically, Cooper and Owen (2007, p. 652) suggested that “hierarchical andcoercive power prevent the form of accountability that can be achieved throughdiscussion and dialogue” and that arguably, at best, companies may “favourshareholders over all other interested groups”.

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Second, all the major companies within the hospitality industry need to look tocommission comprehensive independent external assurance as an integral element intheir sustainability reporting process to improve its transparency and integrity. Intheory, the external assurance of sustainability reports should be important for anumber of audiences including the general public, customers, investors, employees,suppliers, regulatory bodies, governments, organised labour, non-governmentalorganisations and environmental and social pressure groups. RAAS Consulting (2009),for example, suggested that the two primary audiences are regulators and investors.However, the assurance statements contained in sustainability reports published bymany of the leading players within the hospitality industry gave little or no indication oftheir intended audiences. Rather, CorporateRegister.com Limited (2008, p. 27) suggestedthat while such assurance statements would seem to be produced for externalstakeholders, in reality, they are produced for a company’s internal audiences andargued that “the language of assurance reduces its appeal to the wider audience”.O’Dwyer and Owen (2005, p. 224) contrast this approach with “the governancestructures underpinning the financial audit process”, arguing that management’s:

[…] reluctance to address the assurance statement to specific constituencies implies that theyare primarily providing value for management thereby reflecting a perceived demand forassurance of this information from management as opposed to stakeholders.

O’Dwyer and Owen (2005, p. 224) concluded that this issue merited corporate attentionfor without it “assurance statement practice will fail to enhance accountability andtransparency to organisational stakeholders”.

Third, the leading players in the hospitality industry must determine the resourcesthey are prepared to dedicate to sustainability and how they look to identify andmeasure the benefits of embedding sustainability within their business models. TheEthical Corporation (2015, Webpage), for example, has argued that “a good proxy forhow seriously organisations take sustainability is, of course, how much money they areprepared to spend on it”. While a low-budget commitment to sustainability is notnecessarily a problem per se, for example, in identifying the major sustainability issuesfacing a company, it can send a clear message throughout the company thatsustainability is low on the corporate priority agenda. Arguably, more importantly,there is the thorny issue of whether and how companies capture and evaluate thebenefits of their strategic sustainability commitments and achievements in financialterms. Initially, benefits seem likely to be generated by the range of efficiency gains andsavings outlined earlier, but the leading hospitality companies seem likely to continue toface challenges in measuring the returns on their investment in sustainability.

More generally, increasingly, the corporate community is currently exploring how itcan make its reporting process more effective and how it can address value creation anda range of critical questions seem likely to attract attention. These issues includeimproving stakeholder engagement and promoting meaningful dialogue withstakeholders and identifying how stakeholders use corporate sustainability reports toimpact on their own decision-making processes. While the emphasis in sustainabilityreporting is predominantly on external stakeholders, many companies need to do moreto engage with their internal stakeholders, namely, their employees. Thus,sustainability reporting should be seen to be increasingly relevant to the business withthe focus being on embedding sustainability into the core business strategy, on

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enhancing the level of engagement with sustainability and sustainability reporting atmain board level and on motivating middle managers to promote the value of pursuingsustainability throughout the business. At the same time, the major players in thehospitality industry need to review the balance between accessibility and substance intheir corporate sustainability reporting. Social media would seem to have anincreasingly important role to play here and companies should look to integratesustainability reporting into their existing social media channels not least because itoffers the opportunity to raise issues around real-time responses and to managecustomer expectations and interactions speedily and more effectively. Arguably, moresensitively, if the leading players in the hospitality industry are genuinely keen to beseen to take sustainability seriously, then they may need to be prepared to share theirexperiences and their commissioned in-house research findings across the industry.However, this may provide a dilemma for companies which perceive their sustainabilityprogrammes and achievements as a growing source of competitive advantage.

The growing commitment to corporate sustainability has been accompanied by anincrease in research by business and management and hospitality academics, and thiswork has embraced a range of themes and issues, but, in many ways, this work is in itsinfancy and much remains to be done. This research initially emerged within thebusiness and management literature, and was principally focused on the environment,but as the concept of sustainability has gained increasing momentum and embracedsocial and economic dimensions, so a research focus has emerged in a wide range of thesub-disciplines under the broad business and management umbrella. This diffusion ofresearch activity is encouraging, in that it clearly suggests that sustainability isincreasingly seen to be an important issue across the business academy, and, as such, itprovides opportunities to investigate what may be both subtle and substantialsustainability challenges in different sectors of the economy. The hospitality industry,for example, provides a wide range of intangible services and more specifically in traveland tourism looks to offer exciting, and often unique, experiences, and, as such, it may beseen to face a different set of sustainability challenges to manufacturing industry, wherethe emphasis is on the production of a wide range of tangible products.

A number of travel and cruise companies, for example, run high-profile marketingcampaigns to promote visits to prized and fragile environments, such as Antarctica andthe Galapagos Islands, which provide unique environmental challenges. As more partsof the world increasingly experience a wide range of environmental stresses, so researchon fragile environments may offer powerful insights which may have much widercurrency across all areas of economic activity. At the same time, the development ofresearch traditions into sustainability within these different sectors of the economy, andthe publication of the findings of research within these traditions in sector-specificjournals, can lead to fragmentation and there is clearly a pressing need to assimilate andintegrate research work undertaken within the hospitality industry within the widercorpus of sustainability research and arguably more importantly to make this researchreadily accessible to a wide range of corporate audiences. Achieving such ambitiousacademic and corporate goals is in itself a major challenge. A number of consultanciesand business pressure groups, such as Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCooper and GreenBiz,are, in part, at least, helping to fulfil the latter role but, to date, there has been limitedprogress in integrating, publishing and disseminating the findings of academic researchacross the business and management disciplines.

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While there is some limited evidence that a more coherent structure for sustainabilityresearch is emerging amongst hospitality scholars much work remains to be done. Morespecifically a number of potentially fruitful future academic research agendas can alsobe identified within the hospitality industry. In marketing, could include marketresearch designed to examine the meanings of sustainability to the hospitalityindustry’s customers and to hospitality and holiday companies and travel agents andconsultants. Further work in this field might focus on if, and why, customers thinksustainability is important, on the characteristics of those consumers that care aboutsustainability and on the extent to which such consumers are willing to change theirpatterns of behaviour. Research might also profitably explore the importance ofsustainability to the wider groups of stakeholders in both the business travel and thetourist/leisure markets. Further work might also be profitably focused on howsustainability is currently managed within hotelier/supplier relationships and on thelocus of and impact of power within such relationships. Research into stakeholderperceptions of the importance of external factors, including statutory regulation,corporate reputation and globalisation and internal factors, including efficiency gains inoperating costs and the desire to recruit and retain creative and talented employees,would be valuable in helping to more fully appreciate the development of the leadinghospitality companies’ commitments to sustainability. Such research might beprofitably complemented by investigations into the factors influencing, and thechallenges facing, those companies which have, to date, made limited commitments tosustainability. Research into the development of information systems designed tofacilitate continuous improvements in sustainability are in their infancy and here thereis certainly fertile ground for future research endeavours. Finally, there is a need toexplore if and how more transparent corporate commitments to sustainability arereflected in profit margins and stock market performance.

In pursuing these research agendas, a wide variety of research approaches andmethods would seem to be appropriate and, while large-scale questionnaire surveys canprovide large volumes of data from large numbers of stakeholders, more qualitativeapproaches, based, for example, around focus groups and semi-structured interviewsmay provide richer insights into how awareness of, and attitudes towards,sustainability influences consumer, supplier and employee thinking and behaviour. Inundertaking future research on sustainability within the hospitality industry,academics will continue to draw on, and contribute to, the theoretical frameworksoutlined earlier in this paper. This, in turn, will allow scholars in the hospitality industryto more fully integrate their work into the wider body of knowledge on sustainabilitywithin the business and management literature. More specifically, stakeholder theorywould seem to offer particular promise. This will bring practical benefits, in that if thehospitality industry is to adopt increasingly more sustainable policies, protocols andpractices, it will need to convince a diverse range of stakeholders of the ultimate meritsof such an approach and that in turn may involve sacrificing short-term gains forlong-term business continuity. Researchers exploring sustainability in the hospitalityindustry can profitably link their work to the growing body of work within the socialsciences outlined earlier and this may, in turn, encourage the development of morecritical perspectives in exploring the evolving, but complex and contested, role ofsustainability within economy and society. More generally, cross-disciplinary researchis clearly needed to address the “sustainability gap” identified earlier in this paper and

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to contribute to a wider and a shared understanding of the larger issues particularlyclimate change.

More critically, while the major players within the hospitality industry claim acorporate commitment to sustainability programmes and a growing number of scholarswithin its academy are pursuing a wide range of research agendas, the issue ofsustainable consumption and continuing economic growth is conspicuous by theircontinuing absence from these programmes and agendas. While Mansfield (2009, p. 37)has argued that “sustainability is a wildly popular way of thinking about how tosimultaneously meet the needs of people and the environment by enhancing humanwell-being without undermining ecological integrity”, the current authors find itdifficult to accept that the major players within the hospitality industry currently haveany deep-seated interest or commitment to what has been described earlier as strongsustainability. At the same time, the authors’ perceptions of general consumerbehaviour, deeply rooted as it is in the continuing acquisition of goods and services inseemingly ever increasing amounts and the increasing burgeoning of consumerism,offer little reason to believe that consumers have any realistic appetite for dramaticchanges in lifestyle that a commitment to strong sustainability surely demands. Moregenerally, corporate commitments to growth within the hospitality industry are justpart, albeit a growing part, of the wider trajectory of economic growth within the globaleconomy and are seen as central to globalisation.

As such, the authors currently find little corporate or consumer appetite for atransition to a more genuinely sustainable future. Such a scenario seems currentlypolitically unacceptable. Reisch et al. (2008, p. 2), for example, argued that althoughmoving towards sustainable consumption is a major policy agenda, “growth of incomeand material throughput by means of industrialization and mass consumerism remainsthe basic aim of western democracy”. In a similar vein, the European Commission (2012,p. 9) has recognised that “sustainable consumption is seen by some as a reversal ofprogress towards greater quality of life” and that “it would involve a sacrifice of current,tangible needs and desires in the name of an uncertain future”. This in turn also reflectsthe overwhelmingly dominant thinking within orthodox economics that growth is goodand there is little enthusiasm to promote or move towards an economic system that doesnot promote growth. While there is, at best, only limited thinking on what such analternative model would look like or how it would function, there are neverthelessgrowing common sense concerns that the growth model must fail at some point in thefuture. Although the increasing incidence of extreme weather events across the world isoften seen being a harbinger of seemingly inevitable climate change, they quickly seemto be largely, though not entirely, forgotten and simply brushed aside. In truth, it mayrequire a truly cataclysmic global event to trigger collective, rather than individual,self-interest, to precipitate widespread corporate and consumer engagement and actionon sustainability.

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About the authorsPeter Jones is a Professor of Strategic Management in the Business School at the University ofGloucestershire. His research interests are in sustainability and retailing. Peter Jones is thecorresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]

David Hillier is an Emeritus Professor in the Centre for Police Sciences at the University ofSouth Wales and his research interests are in crime and urban design and sustainability.

Daphne Comfort is a Research Administrator in the Business School at the University ofGloucestershire. Her research interests are in sustainability and woodland management.

For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website:www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htmOr contact us for further details: [email protected]

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http://www.wyndhamworldwide.com/sites/pdfs/green/Final-Wyndham-Sustainability-Report-July-2011.pdf

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mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

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